What’s a “Good” ACT Score? – ACT Percentiles and Score Rankings

If you’ve recently taken the ACT and you’re wondering how your ACT score stacks up against other students, then you’re not alone.

Many students, immediately after getting the ACT score, will ask: “Well, now I have my score, but what’s a ‘good’ score on the ACT?’

It’s not immediately clear whether a student should be shooting for a 20, or a 25, or a 30 on the ACT. Obviously, a higher score is better, but what qualifies as “good”?

The answer is, of course, that it depends.

It’s important to keep in mind that your ACT score is just one factor that is used in college admissions decisions. Many times, students are able to make up for less-than-great ACT scores with having an exceptional application in other ways (community and extracurricular involvement, glowing letters of recommendation, etc).

But, it is true that most colleges have a range of ACT scores that they generally accept—most students will fall in or near that range. So, what’s “good” depends largely on what your college goals are.

ACT Score Requirements

Very few colleges have published ACT score requirements or “minimums”. But you can use a site like College Raptor to see how admitted students at that college generally score—usually shown by the 25th and 75th percentiles—to determine how well you fit in at that school.

In general, if your ACT score falls near the middle of the range shown, you can assume that your odds of acceptance are roughly average—or equal to the total admit rate at that college. (In this case, about 35%.)

Of course, things like your intended major, GPA, recommendation letters, extracurricular activities, and more can impact those odds.

Merit Aid and ACT Scores

Another big thing to consider when deciding if you’ve met your goal on the ACT is money. Many colleges offer merit aid to students that meet certain academic criteria. So, getting a strong ACT score could actually be worth a lot of money—possibly thousands of dollars in scholarships.

If you have a specific college in mind, you may want to check out their website (specifically their financial aid and scholarships sections) to see if they list their merit scholarships and the requirements for qualification.

ACT Score Distribution

If you’re looking to just get an idea of what constitutes an average or above-average ACT score, then you can look at the published distribution from other test takers.

Here’s the breakdown of ACT scores from 2014:

Score

Composite Percentiles

English Percentiles

Math Percentiles

Reading Percentiles

Science Percentiles

36

99

99

99

99

99

35

99

99

99

99

99

34

99

98

99

99

99

33

99

97

98

97

98

32

98

95

97

95

98

31

97

94

96

93

97

30

95

92

95

90

95

29

93

90

93

87

94

28

90

88

91

84

93

27

87

85

88

81

90

26

83

82

84

78

87

25

79

79

79

75

83

24

74

74

73

72

77

23

68

69

67

66

70

22

62

64

61

61

63

21

56

58

56

56

56

20

49

51

52

48

48

19

42

44

47

42

39

18

36

39

42

36

32

17

29

35

36

30

26

16

23

31

27

25

21

15

17

26

15

20

16

14

12

20

6

16

12

13

7

16

2

11

9

12

4

12

1

7

6

11

1

10

1

4

4

This means that, for example, a student scoring a 20 on the ACT (composite) has scored higher than about 49% of all test takers and about 7% of all test takers scored a 20 (56 – 49 = 7).

The 50th percentile would represent the median ACT score, which can be used to estimate an “average” score—so approximately 20–21 on the composite and for each of the sub test scores.

Note that this distribution will change (slightly) from year to year, as tests and test takers change. But, generally, a 21 on the ACT is approximately “average”.

Interested in seeing how your ACT score affects your admission chances at any college in the country? Check it out for free using College Raptor’s match tool!

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Tyler Hakes is the Director of Marketing at College Raptor. He writes about topics related to the college search, admissions and financial aid. He's always looking to tell great stories about students discovering their perfect school.